The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico was raided and shut down by the FBI on September 6 over an undisclosed national security issue, stirring up a wide array of conspiracy theories on YouTube, social media and tabloids.

“There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers, but nobody would tell us anything,” Otero County Sheriff Benny House told the Alamogordo Daily News. “I don’t know why the FBI would get involved so quick and not tell us anything.”

An anonymous 4chan user who called both nearby Apache Point Observatory and the local sheriff was told that they were “locked out” of the Sunspot observatory and had no idea what was going on.

Located near both White Sands Missile Range and infamous Roswell New Mexico, speculation over the observatory’s abrupt closure has ranged from an alien mothership using the sun to “refuel”, to a devastating solar disaster such as the 1859 Carrington Event – a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) which would have undoubtedly blown out most satellites and electronics had they been invented yet.